Diabetes mellitus is a chronic metabolic disorder caused by an inability of a person's pancreas to produce sufficient amounts of the hormone, insulin, such that the person's metabolism is unable to provide for the proper absorption of sugar and starch. This failure leads to hyperglycemia, i.e. the presence of an excessive amount of analyte, such as glucose, within the blood plasma. Persistent hyperglycemia has been associated with a variety of serious symptoms and life threatening long-term complications such as dehydration, ketoacidosis, diabetic coma, cardiovascular diseases, chronic renal failure, retinal damage and nerve damages with the risk of amputation of extremities. Self-monitoring of blood glucose and the self-administration of insulin is the typical method for treating diabetes. The “correct” insulin dosage is a function of the level of glucose in the blood. Insufficient insulin dosages can result in hyperglycemia, and excessive insulin dosages can result in hypoglycemia, which can result in clumsiness, trouble talking, confusion, loss of consciousness, seizures, or death. Accordingly, people with diabetes (PWDs) face a considerable cognitive burden in determining an appropriate dosages of insulin.
In order to assist with this self-treatment, many diabetes-related devices (e.g., blood glucose meters, insulin pumps, etc.) are equipped with insulin bolus calculators that have the user input a number of carbohydrates consumed (or about to be consumed) and the bolus calculator outputs a recommended size for the insulin bolus dosage. Although bolus calculators remove some of the calculations that need to be made by the user in determining an appropriate insulin bolus dosage, bolus calculators still burden the user with the mental task of determining the number of carbohydrates in their meal and often require manual entry of data. Accordingly, there is a need for methods, systems, and devices that further reduce the cognitive burden on the user while improving the accuracy of a recommended insulin bolus dosage.